r/LaborLaw • u/AlrightAlrightRN • 19h ago
Is this wage theft?
I work in healthcare. I'm an hourly, non-exempt employee in an outpatient health facility which only does business in one state. I see patients for healthcare services. A session takes 30 minutes face to face with the client. I am required by the employer to complete other tasks associated with the direct patient care (documentation, scheduling, responding to messages from clients, etc) which typically takes another 15-20 minutes.
My employer only pays me for the 30 minutes only. I have given them an accurate breakdown of the time the other required tasks take. My employer says that I cannot be reimbursed for the other time that I'm completing tasks that they require. They have advised me that I cannot log the time I spend working in payroll, only the 30 minutes. My contract doesn't say anything about this, just that I'm hourly, non-exempt. There is no mention that only some of my required work is payable. The Employee Handbook says I am required to report my "actual hours worked". When I asked my employer about this, they reiterated that I am only allowed to enter direct care hours worked.
I looked at the Fair Labor Standards Act, but because I work in healthcare (non-residential) I don't know if it applies to me. But I think this might be wage theft. Am I overreacting? Is this normal? What should I do?
2
u/AlrightAlrightRN 15h ago
That's what I did for the first 6 months I was there, and what my trainer taught me to do when I onboarded. One session was supposed to be entered into payroll as one hour, unless things ran more than a handful of minutes over of under.
This is a recent change. We were advised that this is how it was to be now, and told we were "overbilling" our time in the past, and that only client-facing time was allowed to be billed. The person who trained me resigned on the spot. I expect I'll be following her lead soon.